Creating Content: Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Digital Library Program

Special Topics in Librarianship / CUA School of Library and Information ScienceJuly 31, 2007 / Smithsonian Institution

Martin R. KalfatovicSmithsonian Institution Libraries

Creating ContentSmithsonian Institution Libraries'

Digital Library ProgramMartin R. Kalfatovic

New Media Office and Preservation Services

Smithsonian Institution Libraries



Overview of Library Digitizing

• Books are unique objects for scanning purposes

• Differ from 2 dimensional works (e.g. Photographs)

• Differ from 3 dimensional works (e.g. Artifacts)

• Codex has been around for over 1600 years

• The book format (title page, text, index, etc.) since the mid-16th century

• Web delivery of book objects

has interesting challenges



Book Digitizing Process

• Bound materials– Quality issues– Protects the material

for future use

• Disbound materials– Generally better scans– Destructive



SIL Imaging Center

• Established 1999

• 2 digital scanning-back cameras– BetterLight– Phase I

• Flatbed scanners

• All Mac-based



• SIL has used a variety of commercial vendors for non- and semi-rare materials– Kirtas Technologies

(Robotic APT 2400 Scanner)

– Preservation Resources– PTFS, Inc.– JJT– TechBooks

Digitizing Vendors



Digitizing Partners

Internet Archive HQSan Francisco

Internet ArchiveScribe Book Scanner



Digitizing Standards: Page Images

DLF Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials

300 dpi, 24-bit color uncompressed TIFF, or lossless compressed images (e.g. LZW, JPEG2000)



Digitizing Standards: Text Conversion

Re-keying or OCR with correction to 99.997% accuracy

Standard mark-up schema (e.g. flavors of XML like TEI or structured databases)



SIL Digitizing Statistics• Approximately

350,000 scanned pages

• 700+ titles

• 1,100 volumes



Who Is Using the SIL Digital Library?

• Sewing machine enthusiasts

• Researchers in Brazil• School kids around

the country• Lepidopterists in Peru



Major Projects: Digital Editions• History of Science• Natural History• History and Culture• Art and Design



Major Projects: Trade Literature

• Trade Literature Collections– Over 500,000 pieces,

only a small fraction digitized

– 30,000 images from two collections

– Among SI Libraries’ most popular sites with over 15,000 visitors per month



Major Projects: Image Galaxy

• SIL Image Galaxy– Over 9,000 of SI Libraries’

most interesting images– Serves as a gateway for

product development and licensing

– Assists students and teachers in locating images for use in the classroom and other projects



Major Projects: Scholarly Publications

• Smithsonian Contributions and Studies Series– Collaboration with

Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press

– Currently over 65,000 pages online with another 80,000 in FY 2007



National and International Partnerships

• Aluka– African history

and culture

• Open Content Alliance



Internet Archive Scribe Scanner

• Single Scribe Machine– Human operated– 200 volumes per

shift per week– ~ 70,000 pages from

a single machine per week



BHL Scribe Facilities• Boston Library Consortium

(Boston Public Library)• New York Public Library• University of Illinois, Urbana-

Champaign• Natural History Museum

(London)• Smithsonian Inst. Libraries• Missouri Botanical Garden

(non-Scribe operation)



Digitizing Philosophy

• Digital Curation– Just as libraries keep

books, so do libraries have a mission to preserve “born digital” material

– Digital Preservation through assisting in the transmission of digital content to future generations



Smithsonian Digital Repository

• DSpace– Developed jointly by

MIT and HP

– Open source software used in hundreds of academic libraries

– Preserves and makes available digital output of scientists, researchers, curators, historians, etc.



Needs for Enhancing the SIL Digital Library Program

• Petabyte storage system for source files

• Effective system for archiving of digital material (byte preservation)

• Enhanced capacity for storing/delivering web-deliverable images

• Central programming support for enhanced XML data delivery



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